Wow! BPL has just completed its Gameweek 30, which means we have about 8 more matches before the season concludes! Sure seemed like yesterday that the BPL 2011/12 season just kicked off! рџ›

On the reality front, whilst there are quite a number of teams jostling for the 3rd and 4th positions, both Manchester clubs are going virtually neck-to-neck in the title race! After grinding out a 1-0 victory over Fulham, Man Utd is 3 points clear, (still) with inferior goal difference of (-3) but with only 8 matches to go. The key message here is that Man Utd’s final stretch looks significantly easier on paper, with upcoming matches include Blackburn, QPR, Wigan, Villa and Everton before the Manchester derby. Compared to Man City’s schedule of playing Sunderland, Arsenal, West Brom, Norwich and Wolves, things are looking good for Man Utd. Without further distractions from domestic cup competitions as well as the Mickey Mouse Europa League does help too!

Meanwhile, back in Fantasy Football land, I am happy to announce as at the completion of GW 30, I have finally managed to claw my way back to the top amongst my friends! In my Q2 report, I shared that only 10 points separated the top 3, with Friend A on top, followed by Friend P and me in third spot. Over the next couple of weeks, Friend A started to drop points rather drastically, possibly due to the lack of support from his bench. So that left me, week after week, trying to catch Friend P.

As I approached GW30, I gambled on buying Grant Holt (NWC) to score goals against woeful Wolves, and it partially paid off with Holt scoring twice….and sadly collecting a RED card too. Sigh. Thankfully, my other players did enough to secure me 50 points, which was sufficient to overtake Friend P for now. Yay me!

In terms of stats, this is a summary of my Q3 report:

Globally, I have improved my positioning from 3,855 (0.8%) to 2,889 (0.5%). My team value has increased just slightly from $168M to $171M. I doubt it would increase any more within the final stretch of 8 games. Current points collected is 1,324.3, with the chasing pack of Friend P (1,312.6) and Friend A (1,258.7)

Looking forward to an exciting finish to this season’s BPL, both on in reality and on the fantasy front.

Whew! How time flies! It seemed like only yesterday that the La Liga players were involved in some strike which threatened a shut down of this season from happening.

Suddenly, we’ve already just completed Gameweek (GW) 20 of Football Fantasy:La Liga Version, which is roughly the midway point of the entire season. So I felt I needed to review and update my performance of my rookie year in FF:La Liga.

It’s of no surprise that not many of my friends have joined FF:La Liga, mainly because it is not so heavily or popularly followed in my country, compared to BPL, that is. Tsk tsk. This year, I noted there are only three (including me) from my football crazy friends who tried out their luck in FF: La Liga.

What is surprising is that after GW20, I am sitting pretty comfortable at the top from my two other friends with 922.3 points. What is even more surprising is that I am in position 1087 overall with a global ranking of 0.6%. Over 20 games, I have only managed to increase my cap by $7.5M to $157.5M.

Wow! I’m honestly pretty pleased with my team’s performance considering my knowledge of La Liga was centered around Ronaldo-Messi-Forlan before this season started. Heck, I even bought Forlan on my team to start the season! (tip: need to follow news too!):-p Probably that would explain why it was so difficult to make good punts on players who will increase in value or even make realistic match predictions to strategically place my players week in week out. Now, I could easily spew out a few more players like Corzola, Michu, Munua, etc. рџЂ

So, what have I learnt so far after going through 20 games in FF: La Liga?

1. Get Messi and Ronaldo on your team! Unlike BPL, La Liga is essentially a two-horse race from the beginning and arguably the world’s top two players must be on your team. A quick scan on the stats will show both of them accumulating far many points compared to other players. One of my rookie mistakes in FF:La Liga was to buy only one of them to start off the season. I soon realised my folly and worked towards getting both on my team ASAP. Never looked back since. рџ›

2. I also realised the yellow and red cards are flashed more often in La Liga compared to BPL. I wonder why? Anyway, what this means is that average or cheap players would be able to contribute just as much points as the more expensive ones…in the long run of course. I still have not found a site to track and monitor all these cards and card suspensions though..

3. Just like BPL, injuries are bound to happen in La Liga as well. Currently I am using this list from Soccerfreakz to help me select players who not injured and also to monitor their injury status. Do let me know if you can find one that tells me their card suspension status, yeah?! ;-P

And that’s the mid-season wrap. Will share more tips at the end of season since the season is still on-going and my friends can still catch up! рџ›

Alrighty! The BPL has just completed Gameweek 10 last weekend, which works out to about one quarter of the entire season, so I thought it’d do me some good to reflect on my performance so far as footie manager in Fantasy Football land..

I am currently ranked 3rd amongst my football mad friends, and overall in the 4% bracket globally. My team value to-date is $162.1 which is quite an OK ROI of about 12M over 10 matches.

While it looks pretty decent on paper, I have to sadly say it’s only average if I were to compare it to my last year’s performance. I believe it was only around GW 6 or 7 when I took lead of my friend’s standings and never relinquished it. This year is a whole new challenge altogether as I had been chasing from as far as 7th place at one point!

Many GWs have not gone my way and the only silver lining I can see is the steady increase of my team value. It has been quite a strange season indeed with very few clean sheets and any team seems to be able to score against any team! I have to say I am pretty surprised with Newcastle’s performance to date. I had initially held back buying any of their players, waving off their early season form as a fluke. After 10 matches, they have proven me wrong with many gritty performances and their cohesive team spirit. Guess I may have to start buying some of their players (already did!)

From experience, I know that I would need to catch the front-runners by GW20 or GW25 max if I were to have any chance to catch them at all. Reason being by then all the players would have reached their ‘plateau’ of value so it would be considerably harder to make good investments to increase the salary cap. In addition, all teams would have achieved some equilibrium or standard team that would bear resemblance to many other top teams. What I mean here is that by the halfway point of the season, most FF managers would have a large team value and would buy the same top players – thus negating any chances for chasing the leading pack.

So, what do I do NOW to chase the front-runners?

1. Buy different players from teams ahead of me. This one is kinda tough to do since most teams have really good players and would be an easy decision to buy them too, but I have to bear in mind that if I buy the same players as the teams I’m chasing, I will never be able to catch up!

2. Increase team value. I always believe that good investments must be made wherever possible to increase one’s team value. If your team does not perform during a particular GW, it would be more than a consolation if your team value increases for that GW due to your purchases. Higher team value would give me better financial muscle to buy top players to score more points.

Some tips ahead of GW11:

– Buy RVP FAST! His value is sure to soar after his hattrick over the weekend.

– Offload Gerard! Yet another injury forces him out of action for 2 weeks at least.

– I’m quite surprised this season has seen plenty of goals from strikers and not many clean sheets. May be worthwhile to drop defenders and stock up on strikers. Everybody seems to be scoring hattricks these days…

Whilst it was another good weekend for Man United with a 3-1 victory over Chelsea, the same cannot be said about my Fantasy Football team! If there was a word that could define a massacre of a massacre, my team would be it. I was truly humbled by collecting in total only 12.8 points – definitely a career low..ever!

It was as if everyone in the league contrived to have a weekend where most underdogs won, red and yellow cards flashed to my players, penalties missed, wrongly chosen captain, my players not playing, my players scoring own goals, etc.

Sigh. Guess I just need to review my picks and look ahead to improving my fantasy season, which has been quite miserable to date. Some lessons drawn from last weekend’s nightmare listed as tips for the coming weekend:

1. Choosing the Captain.

I had shortlisted my captains to 3 last week – Rooney, Walcott and Nasri. Based from history that ManU-Chelsea encounters have always been fiery = possible carding for Rooney, and stats that City-Fulham matches were always high scoring = no clean sheet for Nasri, I opted for Walcott to lead (troubled) Arsenal to pick (even more troubled) Blackburn apart. Unfortunately, Walcott didn’t even get to start in Arsenal’sВ embarrassingВ loss in Ewood Park!

Lesson: Managers tend to rest most stars following European nights. Maybe always a safe bet to stick with one same captain throughout the fantasy campaign. I know of some fantasy managers who have reaped in big time for sticking with Rooney as captain since the beginning. My tip for this weekend: Go for a Chelsea captain in anticipation of a backlash against minnows Swansea, or a Liverpool captain in an expected easy home win over Wolves.

2. Bargain Trades

Spurs have been performing admirably of late…and they do have a good line-up of cheap players in fantasy football land. My tip would be to grab Modric, Adebayor, Bale or DeFoe quickly and watch their value increase over the next few days.

3. Reliable Defenders

Not many may have noticed that since the arrival of Parker, Spurs have looked more solid in midfield, better defensively, compared to the more offensive-minded team when VDV was running its engine. This makes a good tip to buy some of their defenders, which may prove quite likely to secure clean sheets from now on.

4. Striker Woes

The unfortunate tackle on Hernandez meant Little Pea may be out of action for some time…hopefully not too long. Meanwhile, with Welbeck also out, it seems quite good timing to buy a certain Bulgarian to play first team action for some time. I also foresee Klasnic’s value to drop in the next couple of days after his red card over the weekend will rule him out for at least 2 weeks. Bargain strikers include Leon Best (Newcastle), Sturridge (Chelsea), and Bendter (Sunderland) – both of which should see more first team action with recent team developments respectively.

5. Crystal Ball

One player I have in view is Steven Gerrard of Liverpool. His value has dropped to a reasonable price now and could be a good ripe pick before he gets back into action. Challenge is how would he fit into KD’s plans? Torres is another player to track. Although he missed quite a bagful yesterday, I have to admit his fitness, workrate, passing and positioning were spot on when he threatened to score more than a hattrick at Old Trafford. Wouldn’t be surprised to see him scoring big points anytime soon.

Now excuse me while I go sulk and hope for a better outing this coming weekend…:-)